European Bank Accord To Settle Bosnia Refugees

UN Agency Signs First Accord With European Bank To Settle
Bosnia Refugees

Some 850 people who, 10 years after the
Dayton peace accords, have still not found a permanent
solution to their displacement in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
will quickly receive individual accommodation under a
landmark agreement between the United Nations refugee agency
and a European development bank.

The agreement, the first
of its kind with a major European bank, marks a major step
forward in the effort to bring more development funding to
help refugees and displaced people still living in
collective centres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing today
in Geneva.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
Council of Europe (COE) Development Bank, signed yesterday
in Paris by Acting High Commissioner Wendy Chamberlin and
Bank Governor Raphaël Alomar, is the culmination of
negotiations that began almost two years ago concerning the
possibility of using development funds to boost solutions
for refugees and displaced people of concern to UNHCR.

In
addition to setting out the basic parameters of cooperation
between the two institutions, the MOU covers two important
areas that are already proving immensely beneficial to some
of the people who, a decade after the Balkan wars that tore
apart the former Yugoslavia, have still not found a
permanent solution to their displacement in Bosnia and
Herzegovina as well as in Serbia and Montenegro.

In terms
of direct grants to UNHCR, the bank provided $1 million in
2004 to provide permanent housing for more than 600
residents of collective centres, out of a total of some $3
million the bank has agreed to provide over a five-year
period. A further tranche of this grant may be decided later
this week.

Perhaps more importantly, following the same
theme and model worked out with UNHCR, the bank has also
reached an agreement with the Government of Bosnia and
Herzegovina to provide an €8 million (euros) soft loan to
build accommodation for the remaining people living in
official collective centres. The Government will itself
contribute €4 million in matching funds from its own
resources.

Trump merely pulled the plug, not only on the so-called peace process, two-state solution, ‘land-for-peace formula’ but also all the other tired clichés that have been long dead and decomposing. More>>

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has denounced North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test. The test, which took place this morning, is North Korea’s third test flight of an inter-continental ballistic missile. More>>

ALSO:

At 75, Mnangagwa is not exactly what you’d call a new broom. As many observers have pointed out, his track record has been one of unswerving dedication to Mugabe ever since the days of anti-colonial insurgency... To these guys, things had to change in Zimbabwe, so that things could remain the same. More>>